TRADING PLACES

Hells Angels: Business is booming behind Bordeaux bars

Almost two years ago, when the police put Operation Printemps into
play, most of Quebec's "full patch" Hells found themselves behind bars
in their own special wing at the Bordeaux jail. While the police are
still boasting as to how they pulled the city's Hells off the streets,
others are not so sure. Some prison officials believe that the Hells
are still in business, and that business is very good.

Nickolas Gagnon is the vice-president of the Syndicat des Agents de la
Paix en Services Correctionnels du Quebec.

"Whoever controls the drugs within the prison controls the prison,"
said Gagnon. "We just count the heads and lock the doors." He says
that the morale among his members has dropped to an all-time low and
that the turnover among the province's prison guards has gone through
the roof. The guards at Montreal's Bordeaux jail have told him that
the flow of drugs through the north end jail has become a tidal wave,
and that there is not much that they can do about it.

Last month, over a pound of pot and a quarter pound of hashish were
found hidden in the prison chapel. Authorities soon determined that
the inmate in charge of cleaning the chapel was hiding the drugs for
the Hells Angels.

"The Hells are taking over the province's prisons," said Gagnon. "The
administration knows it but they don't know what they can do about
it." More than a few prison insiders agree with Gagnon.

Peter Paradis, a former full-patch leader of Montreal's Rock Machine,
believes that organized crime has seeped into almost every level of
the government's judicial system.

"It's all about money," he said, "and there's far too much of it
floating around the jails for OC [organized crime] to ignore it."

Paradis should know. While doing a stretch of his own in Bordeaux, he
admits that he was making far more money inside than he ever did while
he was running drugs on the streets of Verdun. He said that inmates
are ready and able to pay up to $40 for a gram of pot.

"With over 440 grams to a pound of pot, you can make a net profit of
nearly $15,000 per pound in less than a week." Paradis estimates that
there must be at least five pounds of soft drugs coming into Bordeaux
each week.

The favoured method of bringing dope through the gates is to have
returning inmates swallow well-greased condoms full of the drugs. "I
had one guy who could bring me up to half a pound of hash every time
he came back to jail," said Paradis. "He would swallow the packages,
while others would stuff their 'hot dogs' up the other way."

Guy Samson, a spokesman for the province's correction service said
that Paradis may be exaggerating. He said that the situation is not as
bad as it seems. "We know what's going on," he said. "We have good
links with the police, the guards keep their eyes open and every jail
has its informers." Samson said that anyone suspected of bringing dope
into the prison is locked in a special cell for up to 72 hours.

"That usually does the trick," Samson said. "If they have anything
they shouldn't have, we'll eventually find it."

Gagnon isn't so sure. "They still have running water in those cells,"
he said. "If anything 'comes up,' the guy just cleans it off and
swallows the package for a second time."

Paradis said that most of the guards have a "live and let live"
attitude. "Jails aren't a good place to get into somebody's face," he
said. "A problem can become serious trouble in a flash."

However, both Paradis and Gagnon agree that there is very little
corruption in the province's jails.

"A dirty guard doesn't last for long," said Gagnon. "There are too
many people in the jail for that kind of thing to go on for long
without somebody finding out about it." Still, he doesn't believe that
the government is serious about finding solutions to the problems
within its prisons.

"The guards are losing control of the prisons to the dope dealers, and
the government doesn't seem to care," he said. "[The government is]
just asking for trouble."

Prison spokesman Guy Samson does not agree. He said that the
government is well aware of what's going on in its prisons and that
measures were being taken to deal with the illicit drug flow. He also
said that the problem was not so much about the time being done in the
province's jails, but more about who was doing the time. Samson was
referring to the fact that most of Quebec's full-patch Angels were
arrested back in 2001 when police put Operation Printemps into action.
"We're talking about a higher level of criminal," he said. "These
people are a serious danger to society. They're not in jail for
parking tickets."

Paradis said that the Hells are making the best of a bad situation and
are still close enough to Montreal to take care of business.

"You always have to remember one thing about the Hells," he said.
"Wherever they go, they always end up running the show."